Overwhelming support for ban, despite pressure from pro-Israel lawyer group
Last weekend’s annual general meeting of Co-operative members voted overwhelmingly – 72% in favour – of an immediate boycott of all Israeli-made or Israel-linked products in the chain’s more than 3,700 stores around the UK. The motion calls on the organisation’s board to “show moral courage and leadership… and take all Israeli products off the shelves.”
Although technically non-binding, the group’s board is expected to act in line with the vote, after banning all goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank in 2007 after a similar vote. If the board complies, the ban will now be extended to the whole colony, with the replacement of affected products by ethical alternatives in all stores expected to be completed by the summer.
The vote came despite calls from genocide-denying Israel lobby group ‘UK Lawyers for Israel’ CEO Jonathan Turner to withdraw the motion. Turner, who last week was heavily criticised for his ‘sickening’ suggestion in his letter to the Co-op that Israel’s starvation blockade on the civilian population would increase life expectancy by reducing obesity, said that the “false and defamatory” motion:
should be withdrawn by the Co-Op Council. If it is wrongly allowed to proceed and is passed, it should be treated as invalid and disregarded.
A statement from the Co-op board suggested it would at least act on all products identifiable as from Israel. Some Israeli companies have tried to bypass similar products by marking their products as produced in Palestine.
The UK Israel lobby has so far been remarkably quiet since the vote and the usual loud accusations of antisemitism have not yet materialisd – perhaps for fear of raising awareness about the ban in case other retailers at last take similar steps against the genocidal state.
Last week, the Co-op narrowly averted a massive cyber-attack by shutting down its systems as the attack began. It is unclear whether the attempted hack on its systems was linked to the scheduled vote or simply criminal.
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Atrocious that the Labour and Co-operative Party (my MP, for one) doesn’t follow the example set by the Co-op retail group.
FWIW, bbc reports that the cyber attack on the Co-operative Group was claimed to be the work of a group known as DragonForce, which operates what the bbc calls ‘an affiliate cyber crime service’. This group is also believed to be responsible for attacks on Marks & Spencer and an attempted hack on Harrods.
As somebody said from the floor at the AGM – the Coop led the boycott campaign against Apartheid – we need them to do the same now.
Terrifically important to get the Co-Op Retail Group and its members reacting like this despite all the power of the vicious Israel Lobby. It is in the tradition of working class unity through Unions and ovements like the Co-op, that the power lies to defeat Netanyahu, Trump the Broligarchs, Faragists and the rest of these self serving fascists. We really so need a renewal of Unions in this country and encouragement to actively get involved – right across every industry and profession in the UK . It’s the only answer. The Labour Party certainly won’t do it for us as they lost their moral compass years ago. This comment may seem a little far out – but bear with me. I was watching the film called The Debaters – somewhat loosely based on real life Wiley College (A Texas college for Black Americans) whose debating team debated an all white college -the University of Southern California in the 30s) and won,. In the film the Uni of Calif becomes Harvard – for effect. However, within the narrative, which included a lynching, black and white sharecroppers came together in a Union to protest the oprression of black people, organised by the local CP member and debating teacher, Mr Tolson. It put the fear of God into the racist Sherriff and Texas Rangers who were going to kill Tolson. It is very much like the point at which things change in civil disobedience, in organised resistance and of course is the turning point in most revolutions (however badly they ultimately turn out). -When the defenders of the social order cross over to the other side – or as in the film, when the workers of different ethnicities , join together to defend the oppressed- it is such a formidable action and so symbolic of the power of unity and thus unions, it frightens the life out of the dominant class oppressor. There is more to say but that is what I felt the Co-op members actions represented in their stand against Israel’s actions in Gaza. .